Crest to help pitchIN grow investor base

KUALA LUMPUR: Equity crowdfunding (ECF) platform pitchIN and Collaborative Research in Engineering, Science and Technology (Crest) signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) yesterday that will see Crest become an official partner of pitchIN in the northern region of Malaysia.

Under the terms of the agreement, Crest will work towards promoting equity crowdfunding and will organise events, assist in identifying fast-growing companies looking to raise funds and grow pitchIN’s investor base outside of Klang Valley.

“We are delighted to have Crest as our partner. Crest has great connections with the electrical and electronics (E&E) business ecosystem and we believe that they will help pitchIN grow its ECF business in the north,” said pitchIN chief executive officer Sam Shafie in a statement.

Crest chief executive officer Jaffri Ibrahim said the collaboration with pitchIN was in line with its aim to boost fundraising opportunities for early stage firms in the E&E sector.

“We hope to profile early stage E&E companies to investors and raise awareness about emerging technologies in the local ecosystem,” he said.

Sam added that pitchIN had a strong ECF deal flow.

“We have successfully completed five ECF deals this year. Another two deals are currently live. In January, we announced that more than 20 companies were in the process of launching equity crowdfunding campaigns this year.

“Since then, we are engaging with even more companies. We are confident that investors will find our deals attractive. At the same time, we look forward to hosting more northern region issuers on pitchIN. One deal is confirmed thus far. Penang-based coffee business company Forest Cloud aims to go live this quarter,” he said.

Meanwhile, potential E&E startups and entrepreneurs can use this avenue to build capacity and gain knowledge in the area of fund raising via the ECF platform.

“Entrepreneurs can take advantage of this opportunity to develop skills in positioning their companies and prepare investor-ready business proposals”, added Jaffri.